Thursday, April 25, 2013

Kat Fisher submits John Chiara

Sierra

Grandview

John Chiara creates huge Ilfochrome prints with his hand
made camera. The images here are from his series Los Angeles which are sort of non-descript images of place that
Chiara hopes communicates the psychological underpinnings of place and memory.
Images like Mulholland Colem are
the most interesting to me because of the distortion of landscape. Because of
multiple exposures the landscape becomes overlapped and flipped and even folded
onto itself. The textures and visual elements of this image are absolutely
beautiful and a visual delight. Even though technical quality is not perfect
within these images, the idea behind them is wonderful. I would love to be able
to see these images in person.

Mulholland Colem

Mulholland Strau

Now for a little bit about his process: John Chiara built
his own camera to capture these images. The camera has to be loaded onto a
trailer and driven into place for the image to be made. Chiara then has to
physically climb into the camera in order to check focus and load the paper. He
then crawls out of the camera, removes the lens cap, and makes an exposure
based on his intuition. Even if the these images are not your thing, the
dedication and process behind these images are well worth reading about.

Palos Verdes

Here is a video with more information about John Chiara, his
giant camera, and his process: